When the media tells your story, it feels like open season on your truth. It’s exposed to commentary, and a part of you loses control over it and the vulnerabilities that you intended to share. When you tell your story to the media, you’re at the mercy of their portrayal and the portrayal of others.
I’ve been betrayed by friends who struggled to understand what happened to me and to accept that the same person who put forth strength and composure could fall apart. I wish I could have said the right things to get them to understand that I was broken, and that my confidence was a lie to both of us.
I’ve been betrayed by my culture, by the toxic masculinity of machismo that historically keeps Latinas quiet after our bodies are violated, and that prevents us from healing as a community. Nuestro dolor y nuestras historias siguen en profundo silencio.
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I’ve been betrayed by friends who struggled to understand what happened to me and to accept that the same person who put forth strength and composure could fall apart.
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I’ve been betrayed by the white society that polices my gender, my sexuality, and my race; that tells me I speak too loudly, and too fast, and that I don’t “pronounce things right”; a society that tells me I should make sure to have makeup on at all times “to bring out those green eyes” so that I attract “the right husband,” and that encouraged me to stay silent in the face of racism because wasn’t I “lucky enough to pass.”
I’ve been betrayed by the university that I love so dearly, whose seal I wear around my neck, and whose quads and bricks hold pieces of me—pieces of who I was before and of who I am today.
Untouchable: Being a Trans Survivor
PRINCESS HARMONY
FIRST SEMESTER, FRESHMAN YEAR: RAPE AND ITS AFTERMATH
It was the end of my first semester at Temple University, and as the first student known to have been raped in the 2013–2014 school year, I was to be the school’s warning to the student body. After my assault, the school newspaper published an antidrinking article that mentioned my case.
I was their warning because I was intoxicated when I was raped. I was at a bar on campus, hanging out, trying to get a feel for college life. He bought me a beer. And I’d had a few drinks before then. I don’t know if something was done to the beer, but that particular night, I got drunk faster than I usually did. We headed back to my dorm, where we were able to enter unhindered because the security, which normally sends intoxicated students to the hospital, didn’t notice that I was drunk. In my room, he told me to take off my shirt and I did it, without thinking. He asked for oral sex and I said no. I attempted to resist but it wasn’t enough and he ended up raping me. I blacked out while it was happening. When I woke up, he was masturbating over me.
When I went to check him out of the residence hall, the security guards noticed that I was drunk. I didn’t want them to know. I really didn’t want to go to the hospital or deal with any of them at all. But, as protocol dictates, they called the police, more guards, and the EMTs. The responders were three EMTs and two cops, and they all looked at me and could tell I was drunk, but didn’t care that I had my rapist’s semen all over me. In hindsight, it seems really wrong to me that they were nonchalant with my rapist, could tell I was drunk, and could tell “something” had gone on between me and him but either didn’t put it together or didn’t care to. They were too busy chatting and laughing it up with my rapist to notice. They let him go, and he ran out of the building like it was on fire.
Deep down, I knew reporting my rape could backfire, but I didn’t have a choice. As part of an administrator’s inquiry about my drinking that night, I was asked what had gone on with my “guest.” I was already facing sanctions for drinking; I was explicitly told that not reporting what happened would earn more disciplinary action. So I was forced into it.
The school’s administration told me that they felt uncomfortable dealing with a transgender survivor, particularly a trans woman survivor. The administration’s behavior didn’t make sense. They helped both men and women who were survivors, but not me? But now I understand that they’d bought into the idea that trans women are unrapeable. In their eyes, the lack of consent didn’t matter.
From the start, the investigation was mishandled. University police, working with Housing and Residential Life, destroyed evidence that they possessed—my rapist’s name, and the time I checked him in and the time I checked him out—and dismissed evidence I presented. They ignored the semen-stained carpeting, and even though anyone could see that I was covered in my rapist’s bodily fluids, I was never asked if I wanted a rape kit. So, because there was no biological evidence, the rape investigation was damned from the start. I was forced to report, retell, and relive my rape over and over again to different administrative officials, including several housing administrators, but there was no Student Conduct Code hearing, and no closure whatsoever. The last time I spoke to the university police, they told me they’d reached a conclusion. My rapist went unpunished.
I would tell other trans survivors at Temple to not report. There’s no point. The administrators who worked in Temple’s Wellness Resource Center would see me come to their offices and resource centers day after day and ignore me. They sent their student workers to ask me what happened and lead me on as if I would get help. Then I’d be told that they wouldn’t or couldn’t help.
Misogyny keeps women from speaking up because society is not inclined to believe them. I met misogyny and transphobia. To me, it seemed that the administrators exhibited a kind of doublethink. On the one hand, they believed that on August 24, 2013, I had been raped in my dorm; on the other hand, they didn’t seem to believe a trans woman could be raped, as they never offered me any postassault medical services. Even though it was rape, as a trans woman the message I got from the school was that I deserved it and that this particular rape didn’t matter, because he’d targeted a transgender woman.
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Even though it was a rape, as a trans woman the message I got from the school was that I deserved it and that this particular rape didn’t matter, because he’d targeted a transgender woman.
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The only support I had was the woman who would eventually be as close to me as a sister. Had it not been for her presence in my life, I would have killed myself. And that’s not hyperbole. I owe her a debt that is unpayable.
Sometimes the flashbacks are so horrible that I can’t leave my bed. I feel his hands on me, I smell him on me. And this experience was made even harder than it needed to be because healing and recovery were impeded by a school that refused to believe that I was the victim of violent sexual assault. I implore people to listen to survivors. To know that no matter what gender you are, what sex you were assigned at birth, what demographic you may fit into now, you can be raped. All people deserve a life without rape and, if they are raped, they deserve support.
Believe survivors. Support them. Love them.
FIRST SEMESTER, JUNIOR YEAR: HEALING AND SURVIVAL
If you’re a survivor, there are spaces for you—support groups, therapists, even online groups where people can share their feelings. But when you’re a transgender woman, you’re not welcomed by these services that anybody else—even cis men—can access. So how do you heal?
The short answer is that you really can’t. Without access to even the most basic service, such as a trans-competent sexual assault nurse examiner, you won’t get even an investigation into your rape.
The long answer is that, even though it’s hard, you can heal on your own. I originally thought of fighting through the pain, continuing to go to school, and never mentioning the things that happened to me. But then I made the jump and chose to become an activist because, through helping others and working to change policy for the better, I could heal my own pain.
I spoke to whoever would listen; I filed my complaints and made them as detailed as possible. In the beginning it was painful, but over time, after telling my story over an
d over, I became numb. I no longer cried, no longer hurt. I just stopped feeling it. While numbness may not be the ideal form of healing, it was the best I could hope for.
My best piece of advice to trans survivors, honestly, is to not risk your mental health for activism. I did what I had to do to survive, but although I found healing in it, there has to be a better way.
Despite all the advances I made and the changes in policy I helped make happen, and even though I was able to numb my pain, participating in the movement made me bitter. Trans-misogyny and other forms of bigotry and bias exist in the movement, as they do anywhere else. I try to engage, to fix them, and people acknowledge what I say and sometimes fervently agree, but then they’ll go back to doing what they always do. It’s heartbreaking.
My healing happened in three phases: coming out with my story; working with trans survivors individually; and then disassociating from a movement that hurt me just as much as the rape had. Those phases were messy, and probably lack the finesse of a proper healing via therapy, but I gained experience and knowledge. The campus antirape movement hurt me. I was shouting into the wind at people who were supposed to have been supportive and who claimed to want to help my activism, but I don’t regret that pain because it made me realize that the antirape movement, much like everything else, can be and is deeply flawed. And I don’t regret my time with that movement.
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The Dangerous Myth of the “Ideal” Survivor
Institutions of higher education often retraumatize students who survive gender-based violence by invalidating our stories and denying our experiences.
While survivors on campuses all over the country are rising to claim justice, in this sea of people clamoring for change there’s a media focus on a particular, “ideal” type of survivor: a cis, white (or white-passing), heterosexual woman. The patriarchy also delivers the message that “innocent” people who get raped are worthy of dignity, but “other” people are deserving of rape or cannot be raped. Many people believe these lies; many more continue to believe that the only legitimate form of rape is that perpetrated by a stranger.
However, survivors are not all “ideal.” Typically, people who were date-raped, trans women, and women of color fall into the category of “other.” And many of us don’t get our stories heard, because we don’t get the space or attention to tell those stories. Not every survivor in the campus antiviolence movement was raped. Some were stalked, or were physically, verbally, or emotionally abused in relationships, or were sexually harassed at school, at work, or on the street, or had other horrifying experiences. Our movement is diverse because the people in it are diverse and their experiences of abuse are diverse.
While the movement has been led by enterprising and intelligent people across the spectrum of race, sexuality, and gender, classic activism, in the form of rallies and teach-ins, isn’t enough to make universities change. The media is the most useful weapon, with its power to share our stories with the world and threaten the university’s brand. Unfortunately, the media also helps shape the problematic image of the “ideal” survivor.
Sometimes when reporters ask for survivor stories, they reject stories from us in the QTPOC (queer and trans person of color) community upon hearing who and what we are. And sometimes, queer and financially suffering survivors within the movement have felt betrayed by other survivors, when the other survivors focused their organizations to cater to those with privilege.
If the movement to fight gender-based violence on college campuses is to succeed, it requires the voices of all survivors. So when members of the media or members of the movement ignore survivors of color and queer survivors, call them out on it. Someone who perpetuates myths and erasure isn’t an ally.
Many of us joined the campus antiviolence movement because we experienced the pain of institutional betrayal. When our university ignores or punishes us after we report gender-based violence or harassment, our movement and community should not betray us as well.
—Princess Harmony
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Ariane Litalien
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Anger
A Chorus
For months, I focused on a quote that I put on my mirror: “Holding on to anger is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die.”
I resent the anger.
I was very angry for a long time after my assault.
I threw my anger from my assault at anyone I felt threatened by.
It took one of my very close friends my senior year saying to me, “You’re kind of a bitch, and mean to people for no reason.”
I wanted to feel less angry every day. My anger was exhausting.
I still get angry sometimes, but now I recognize that anger and channel it: “What’s a better use of this energy?”
I ran into him in the lobby. I couldn’t believe I didn’t kill him. I was consumed by rage and a desire to enact violence on him, very depressed, suicidal.
Why didn’t I murder him? Because I wasn’t the strong, badass woman I think I am.
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Unaccepted Students Day
A. LEA ROTH AND NASTASSJA SCHMIEDT
Lea: We met at an off-campus national gay and lesbian “Creating Change” conference. We were randomly assigned roommates at the conference and hit it off immediately.
Nastassja: I was a freshman and Lea was a junior. I’d started Dartmouth in 2011, and was thinking about African and African American studies, and women’s and gender studies.
Lea: I started in 2009, studying sociology and public health, focusing on global health and social inequalities. I was premed and was an activist around global AIDS policies.
Nastassja: I was born in Italy—my father is Italian—and my mom is African American. I had gone to an all-girls Catholic prep school since fourth grade in Miami. It was a very small, pretty feminist school. I was one of the few black students on campus.
My parents are free spirits—they’ve always supported racial justice and LGBT issues. My mom was a model and actor, and I started modeling when I was six months old, and acting soon after. Because I was a young, black female model, some people assumed I was just a pretty face, but education and the pursuit of knowledge were so important to me.
Lea: I had a difficult time, growing up in Minnesota, because my parents were very unsupportive of me being gay. My high school was maybe at the point where they could have accepted it, but it was 2008 and everyone was saying “That’s so gay!” and “Fag” all the time. So in my senior year I moved out of my parents’ house and enrolled in a state program about an hour away that allowed me to attend classes at a state university for my senior year of high school. I went to Winona State University, in Minnesota, and it was beautiful, freeing. The atmosphere was very supportive. I was able to be myself.
Dartmouth was a very different culture. Small, elite, tight-knit; really a culture shock. It has intense traditions; being a member of that community means participating in those traditions, including using the lingo and jargon. It’s very competitive.
Nastassja: At Dartmouth, the Clery numbers, which are a school’s accounting of violence and hate crimes on campus, were all zero when I applied to the school—I’m a black city kid from a feminist school, so I asked. Plus, my mom was very active in making sure I would be safe.
Lea: One month before I went to Dartmouth, I was assaulted by a woman, a fellow student at Winona. She was an upperclassman and we were in a relationship over the summer. She was struggling with depression and an eating disorder, and she sort of snapped. She had restrained me—tied me up. I told her she was raping me, and to stop; she said, “This isn’t rape”; then she became more forceful and she said, “This is rape.” I started fighting back more and she finally stopped.
As a queer person, I didn’t know who to tell. It felt like something I needed to deal with on my own. I started having PTSD symptoms. Meanwhile, I was going to Dartmouth as a freshman rejected by my family. The drive out there started wi
th my mom asking me to take off my rainbow-beaded bracelet; it turned into a nightmare three-day road trip.
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As a queer person, I didn’t know who to tell. It felt like something I needed to deal with on my own.
* * *
But I was excited to be around so many passionate and brilliant people, and excited about the opportunities and resources there. So at first that excitement overshadowed the traumatic things I had experienced. I created a new self. My second year, I took over the mentoring program for LGBT students, because I kept hearing from so many LGBT students how isolated they felt, or that they had experienced hate crimes, or had been raped, and how isolating and depressing being on campus was for them. I took it upon myself to try to create that safe space that I was looking for.
My junior fall, there was a high-profile hate crime on the gender-neutral floor in a housing unit: someone wrote graffiti that said, “Kill all the fags,” and the floor was vandalized.
Nastassja: That was my freshman fall. It created terror, honestly. Hate-speech graffiti was relatively common on campus. The N-word on Obama posters. People would tear down things about black students or LGBT students.
Lea: A new dean had arrived, and she held this meeting with a room full of LGBT people and we went around the circle and shared different “bias incidents”—
We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out Page 11